planters wart removal

itrieditJune 1, 2006

After an agonizing surgery to remove one planters wart from my heal, it became evident that there were more than one. There were 15 on one foot and 5 on the other. The thought of surgery to remove all of these was more than I could bare as the surgery for just one was absolutely unbearable. So I found this page and began reading. It has been a lengthly process, but all warts are finally gone. Fingernail polish does not work. However, duck tape combined with ultra colloidal silver spray (which I bought at whole foods), did the trick. I was desperate. Duck tape alone did not work, and would not stick. Then I found the guy who skis, and said that he heated up the duck tape with a match prior to putting it on. That works. I dipped a q-tip in the ultra colloidal silver spray, and dabbed it on the warts. Then I cut little circles of duck tape, lit a match to each one to get the glue sticky, and applied the heated tape directly over each wart. You want to leave this tape on as many days as you can keep it on at a time. If you heat the tape, it even stays on when you shower. I was able to keep the same tape on for three to four days. The longer I left it on at a time, the more progress I would see. When I would remove the tape, I would soak my feet and pumice them down as much as I could stand. The planters warts will be black when they start to come to the surface, you will see them. This process took six straight weeks of diligence, but it worked, and was much more effective than surgery. I hope I have helped someone.

Colloidal silver has not be shown to be effective against warts and can stain the skin. Other over-the-counter treatments are safer and more useful (plantar warts, by the way, don't "come to the surface" - they are superficial growths to begin with, caused by human papillomavirus).

I enjoyed reading all the treatments for removing plantars warts. I have been suffering with 2 on the bottom of my foot for over a year. Tried the dermatologist who shaved it and put chemicals on and told me to buy patches. They didnt work. It has gotten bigger. Actually 2 separate clusters. 6 mo later i went to a Podiatrist who is treating it with chemicals also......after 4 weeks and 2 treatments @$30 a co-pay.........it doesnt seem to be getting any better. HE now wants to use very strong amounts of that chemical, and I called to ask if he would numb it, is it painful, and was given the answer, not usually and pain, its individual. I feel he is a bit too gleefull in his actions, saying he wants to blast it off, and from reading some of the comments here, that appears to be a painful treatment. Anyway,,,,,,,,,,,,Im going to try the duct tape that "itriedit" suggested...........and or also "Big Z Boston."........Plan to postphone my visit this week. To be fair the podiatrist said his #1...method would be laser. He doesnt do it himself. So that may be my final choice.
Take care all.

I once cured a rather large and sometimes painful plantar wart using a remedy my father told me.

He said to soak the affected foot in a solution of epsom salts and water as hot as you can stand without scalding your foot for 15 nights for 15 minutes a night.

I didn't get to the full 15 nights because before I did, the wart had become dark and brittle at the inside and upon squeezing it, the dark center broke into pieces which I was able to remove leaving an indentation in my skin that looked like a moon crater (not that large, of course). After some weeks, the indentation smoothed out leaving no sign that the wart had been there.

If I were doing this again, I would especially want to use caution about the hot water. The time I did this remedy, I would customarily start out with water which I had tested for temperature by putting my hand in it. I found that after my foot had been in the water several minutes I could add hot water a little at a time, as it seemed my foot acclimated to the initial temperature and could take a little warmer temperature without feeling burning heat. Could that be because the blood circulation to that extremity had increased in response to the initial heat?

None of this was very scientific at all. I don't recall what amount of epsom salts were used or even if the amount was specified. Niether do I know what part the salts play in the cure of the warts if, in fact, they play any part. The temperature of the water was not measured by thermometer, so I don't know how many degrees the water was. I just know that it cured my plantar wart.

I had three plantar warts on the pad of my left foot. One was small, the others were about 3/8"-1/2" and had been hanging around for about twelve years. Anyhow I got sick of them as they sometimes hurt when I walked. At a routine skin cancer checkup the doc said "Yep, Plantar Warts". Anyhow I read about the DUCT TAPE method. So I cut a piece of Scotch 3M Pressure Sensitive tape about 2 1/2" and applied it strategically. After the first week I had two large inverted volcanoes which were perhaps 1/4" deep. As per instructions -after soaking in the bath- I used a pumice stone to gently debride the bits of white skin that protruded above the normal flesh level. No blood, no pain. Anyway I'm up to week 5 and all have almost healed. At this rate in about a fortnight there will be no sign at all! Since I started wearing a sock at night keeping the duct tape in situ has been no problem- needing changing only weekly. This has been a very simple process requiring minimal intervention on my part. (I don't understand how infection could occur unless perhaps there was already an infection or the warts were not cleaned adequately before applying the tape).

I had a plantar wart on the bottom of my heel which I got in a hospital shower when my son was born almost 5 years ago. I have been through 4 years of dermatologist treatments, from prescription creams (retin-A)and freezing it off, to using some sort of beetle juice that burnt really bad for about a week. The wart got so big it almost took over my whole heel, needless to say I could not walk normally, nor run, exercise or anything without being in pain. The wart spread, it got on the back of my other foot's heel, and also on both my index fingers and thumbs in between the skin and the nail. Treatments were so painful, I could not use those fingers, could barely use my hands. I gave up on the treatments because of the pain and decided I was going to try laser surgery. I knew my hands would be disfigured, but I was to the point of not caring at this point because I just wanted the pain to go away. My husband got on a site like this one and read about banana peels. I told him I would try anything at this point. I went to the store and bought a bunch of bananas. I took the scissors and cut out 6 pieces sized to the size of the warts and took some medicine tape and taped it to my warts. I did this for about a week and didn't think it was working, but I for some reason continued just in case it was....I started buying the greener bananas, since it took longer for them to turn brown on my finger. I kept using the peel all the time during the night, I would put some on before bed. And if I had to be somewhere during the day I would take it off, but as soon as I got home I would re-apply. I am so glad I did this. I was to the point of no return before the laser surgery, but amazingly enough, all I needed was peel! I no longer have ANY warts! I didn't think this was possible at all, I thought I would never have my fingers back, and my feet are totally cleared, you can't even tell I had anything, everything looks totally normal! Amazing what nature brings! I love BANANAS! Please try this, and do not get discouraged. It took about 1 month, but it was a lot quicker than the 4 years of horrible, painful treatment!
Good luck!

I have been attempting davidinfl's suggestion of an epsom salt and hot water solution soak, with approximate proportions of 1/3 cup epson salt to perhaps a total of a half-gallon of water. As suggested, I add hot water as my feet become acclimated to the temperature, and as the water loses heat. It has worked well to begin with hot tap water and progressively contribute water from a kettle. Heating the kettle once and setting it nearby is more than sufficient. (Please use caution -- I wasn't thinking and nearly dunked my feet back in after a hot-water addition that would have scalded.)

After five days of once-daily soaks, the warts I have do appear to be decreasing in their general appearance. For the sake of experimental disclosure, I want to mention that, months ago, they had been scrubbed with a pumice stone and occasionally dabbed with tea tree oil; however, I had not noted any permanent, visible change as a result of these measures. It is difficult to determine whether the pumice or tea tree oil impacted the warts such that the epsom salts would be more effective.

That said, barring any medical problems to which epsom salt would be detrimental (read the box!), this remedy appears to be simple and inexpensive enough to be worth trying before resorting to more invasive methods. Even the "home treatments" at a basic, chain drugstore are a little frightening: the only ones available upon my last trip were home freezing kits, with warnings about potential burning. (Ruled out, as my warts are concealed under the knuckle of a small toe, and I imagine that the skin would be rather sensitive to such an application.) They weren't much better a decade ago, when dancing barefoot left me with dozens of the evil things, one the size of a penny. At the time, there was a brand name solution (no longer for sale, so far as I can tell) that required diligent, daily application. It worked, after many months, but my recent tea tree experiment showed that I seem to lack the discipline to treat them daily. (Unless, of course, treatment involves a hot foot soak and reading time.)

If nothing else, davidinfl has suggested a fantastic, realxing nightly ritual, and for that alone, let me recommend it! I will update this thread after another week or two of epsom soaks, hopefully with some result. If the salt is effective, I wonder if it would work well as a regular measure to inhibit future wart growth. Would be a pleasure to volunteer for that experiment. :)

Hokey old fashioned cure that works. Brush teeth before bed.. RINSE WELL. Use no mouthwash or other rinses. Upon waking up use a cotton swab to wipe between the teeth and cheek. Swab onto wart and it should be completely gone in 3 wks. It is important to let it dry and then cover after you swab the wart. Noticable difference in one week. Doesn't cost you a penny. Supposed to be natural enzymes produced by your body which give you that yucky sticky mouth will kill the wart. It worked for me!

The best remedy I have found for warts is vinegar! I have tried EVERYTHING from essential oils, soaks in various other ingredients, doctors visits to freeze them off, etc. They always came back. Desperate I turned to the internet and tried this cure. It got rid of my warts completely.

Take the cotton from a q-tip and pull it off. Soak it in vinegar to get it wet. Squeeze out the excess but leave the q-tip cotton still pretty saturated. Place over the wart and then either tape or place a band-aid. (I use the industrial heavy duty silver tape, forget the name of it, you all know what I am talking about right?)

When I tape it, I do it so that the q-tip soaked in vinegar doesn't have a chance to dry out. I do this at night before I go to bed. Then in the morning remove it and the wart will be swollen and white and nasty looking. Do this every night for about a week. As it gets to the root, it might sting a little but it is killing the root and all. A few days after starting the treatment the wart will turn black and shrink. About a week later the wart will just fall off leaving a big hole where the root used to be. It is important to get the root and all or the wart will just grow back later.

I got rid of my warts on my hand that NOTHING short of a miracle would cure. Way cheaper than going to the doctors. It is a miracle cure!

I had a plantar wart on the ball of my foot which kept enlarging until it was about an inch in diameter.

After trying several wart removers without success, I had a doctor do a freeze treatment. The wart peeled off in a few days, BUT a small section at the center remained attached deep in my skin -- too painful to pull loose. I just cut it loose and hoped for the best.

Within about two weeks it had rapidly grown back larger than ever, this time spreading onto one of my toes. Where that toe touched another one it spread to the second one and developed a lump in the area where they touched.

Having heard that wart viruses need air to live, I got the idea of applying an iodine solution. I figured that I would give those viruses all the air that they wanted, but make sure that that air was poisoned with iodine fumes.

I smeared the area with a non-staining liquid antiseptic called povidone-iodine (10%). The very next day the wart was noticeably smaller and the lump had completely disappeared.

I continued applying that medicine once or twice each day. Within a few weeks the wart was completely gone and my skin was back to normal.

I told my doctor that he should write this method up for a medical journal.

Now, about ten years later, I have developed three very small warts on the ball of the other foot. They look the same as the previous one did when it started out, but a month of twice-daily use of the povidone has resulted in no noticeable effect.

The present warts may be of a different type, or the problem is that my skin is ten years older.

The povidone-iodine solution can be purchased in most pharmacies, but usually you have to ask for it or have them order it. It's very inexpensive and you need very little of it.

I too read about the options of laser, duct tape (couldnt get to stay on), nail polish, banana peel... in the end I was successful in treating a very painful plantars wart (heel) by soaking affected foot in very hot/warm soapy water for 30 minutes and cutting out with surgical blades (Personna Plus) given to me by dermatologist. The process took several weeks as he told me to be aggressive with the cuts, but not too deep to cause infection. I also let "wound" heal for 3-4 days before next soak/cut. One issue I had was using same blade several times- this allowed the wart to spread... be sure to use new blade each time or sterilize! I feel fortunate to have eliminated the problem and am now back to walking on my entire foot and back to full excercise routines!

Within about two weeks it had rapidly grown back larger than ever, this time spreading onto one of my toes. Where that toe touched another one it spread to the second one and developed a lump in the area where they touched.

Wearing a cotton ball of apple cider vinegar under a bandaid, will do the same thing, quicker. After a few days of 24 hours wearing, it'll scab over. When the scab comes off, the wart is gone (a week or so, 2 for sure). This same method works on moles too.

Not that a very mild acid like vinegar has much chance of effectiveness in diminishing/removing any skin lesion - but no caustic or acid treatment should ever be attempted on moles or similar pigmented lesions without consulting a physician.

The danger here is that what someone thinks is a harmless mole could wind up being a melanoma. Superficially treating such a lesion could result in spread and metastasis (this has happened in cases where people applied caustic bloodroot products to what they thought were moles).